Catherine Palace and Pavlovsk Private Tour

Catherine Palace and Pavlovsk private tour will allow you to visit two famous summer imperial residences in one day without stress and long lines. The Pavlovsk Palace keeps a unique collection of decorative art of the 18th century. This collection was started by its first owners Emperor Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna. The…

Catherine Palace and Pavlovsk private tour will allow you to visit two famous summer imperial residences in one day without stress and long lines.

The Pavlovsk Palace keeps a unique collection of decorative art of the 18th century. This collection was started by its first owners Emperor Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna. The palace has a large landscape park, which is the largest park in Europe.

The Catherine Palace is one of the most popular former royal residences where three Russian empresses loved to spend the summer: Catherine I, Elizabeth and Catherine II. The exposition of the palace will acquaint you with the work of architects who participated in its construction and decoration in the 18-19 centuries as well as with the achievement of restorers who revived it after the Second World War.

Our private tour includes skip-the-line tickets so you don’t have to wait in a two-hour queue for each museum and a personal English-speaking guide will immerse you in the atmosphere of 18th century imperial Russia and tell you about the traditions and events of a bygone era.

History of palaces

The construction of the Catherine Palace began in 1717 as the summer residence of Catherine I. According to the first project he represented a small two-story building consisting of 16 rooms. A few years later Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, ascended the throne and decided to expand the palace so she instructed the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to rebuild the building. Thus, the Great Catherine Palace appeared — a unique building in the Russian Baroque style for the decoration of which 100 kg of gold was spent.

During the Second World War the palace was badly damaged: many exhibits were burned or plundered. The famous Amber Room was exported abroad. Today the palace and park ensemble is fully restored.

The Pavlovsk Palace, which construction took 50 years, was designed by Charles Cameron. Initially it was a small estate, which was rebuilt into a chic imperial palace with ceremonial halls and parks over time.

The palace was completely burned down by the German invaders during the Second World War. Its restoration took more than 35 years.

Tour itinerary

In the morning on the day of the tour your guide will meet you in the hotel lobby and you will go to the Catherine Palace with a personal driver in a Mercedes car. In Tsarskoye Selo you will enter the palace building without passing through huge lines. There you will have an opportunity to appreciate the luxury and atmosphere that surrounded the Russian empresses. During the tour you will see the famous Amber Room and appreciate the scale of restoration work.

A visit to the palace lasts a little over an hour after which you will walk around the Catherine Park with a lot of elegant pavilions, sculptures and monuments.

After a walk, a personal driver will take you for lunch to the Podvorye Restaurant, which is located on the road to Pavlovsk.

Then you will go to the Pavlovsk Palace where you will stroll along the front rooms and see the recreated interiors of the imperial rooms. Together with the guide you will go to a picturesque landscape park, which consists of seven landscape areas and stores a unique collection of Russian, Western European and ancient art.

Why do I need to book this tour?

Pavlovsk and the Catherine Palace are the best county summer imperial residences, which are located close to each other. This visit helps to get a better understanding of the history and spirit of the Russian Empire of the 18-19 centuries. Moreover, you will have an opportunity to appreciate the impressive architecture of those times.

Advantages of this tour

A personal driver and skip the line tickets will save a huge amount of your time that you can spend on relaxation or other visits.

You don’t have to choose between the imperial residences and compare which one is better — visit both.

Personal tour guide will make your visit exciting and informative — you will have a better understanding of the mysterious Russian soul.

Both residences are on the Must Visit Place list — a win-win option confirmed by millions of tourists from all over the world.

This tour is suitable for people who are interested in the history of Russia and those who do not want to miss the most impressive places in St. Petersburg.

When ordering this tour with us, you can be sure that everything will be at the highest level. Our guides annually pass certification for the right to conduct excursions in these museums and our many years of experience allows us to create the ideal route that will make your stay in St. Petersburg as efficient and casual as possible

ADVICE AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Please pay attention that in Pavlovsk the day off is the first Monday of the month and in the Catherine Palace the day off is every Tuesday

You can absolutely free of charge add to this tour a visit to the most beautiful metro stations. To do this you need to just write when you book the tour, that you would like to have a metro tour. In this case, the tour starts half an hour earlier and you will go down the metro on the way from the hotel to Pushkin. At the Narvskaya metro station, you will have time to look around, then you will see the Kirovsky Zavod and Avtovo metro stations which are ones of the most beautiful metro stations in the world. And right after your driver will pick you up at the metro exit to take you to the Catherine Palace

This is a very eventful visit and in spite of a comfortable personal car and a guide that will help you to avoid common mistakes — at the end of the day you are most likely to get tired. This is not the best day to plan significant events for the evening, for example, viewing the opening of the bridges, etc.

There are squirrels and ducks in Pushkin. If you want to feed them, you need to take nuts or bread in advance.

Shooting without a flash is permitted everywhere except in the amber room. Charge your cameras — there will be many beautiful shots.

Who will like this tour?

This tour is suitable for those who are interested in the history and culture of Russia. The ensembles of the Pavlovsk and Catherine palaces will be appreciated by lovers of architecture and landscape parks. Pavlovsk and Pushkin are the most interesting classic sights and a visit to such amazing places definitely won’t disappoint you.

To book a tour or ask a question, please fill out the form below.

Make sure that you have correctly written your current email. We will contact you as soon as possible.

If you book a standard tour on a date that is available then the confirmation of the reservation comes automatically. We try to respond to custom tour inquiry and any questions right away. If we do not have time to answer you within 15 minutes during working hours, you will receive a 5% discount on the total amount of the tour cost.

We are always ready to return the full cost of the tour, in case of cancellation, with the exception of the costs that we made. Therefore, If you cancel the tour with 14 days in advance, we will give you a full refund. For a week or less - individually depending on the tour. In case of cancellation of the tour in less than 3 days, we return 40% of the cost.

By default, we accept 100% payment of tours, as it is generally convenient for everyone. If necessary, you can write to us that you want to pay in part. This is usually not a problem. You can pay the rest on cash in rubles on the first day of excursions.

Yes, all our tours are 100% customizable. By default, we select the perfect tour program verified by thousands of our tourists, but if you have any specific requests, we will take them into account and change them for you. In order to send a request for a custom tour - write to us by mail or make a phone call or fill out and send the form at the end of the description of the tour.

We have really great experience in organizing excursions in St. Petersburg. When assessing the quality of our work, we rely on the feedback of more than 7 thousand tourists who were satisfied with their trip. We organize 100% private tours, while many of our competitors, especially those who working through universal tour aggregators, often cannot guarantee the fact that the tour will be individual and instead of a private car, you will have a minivan with other tourists who are no less surprised and distressed than you.
In addition, our guides will never take you to the souvenir/gift shop, unless you ask them for it. While at present, most of the guides working in other agencies consider it their duty to forcefully bring their tourists to the souvenir shop and earn commissions. Despite the fact that for us this is unconditionally unacceptable and obviously extremely disrespectful to the guests of our city - the situation on the tourism market is just that. Therefore, if you are serious about making your trip go without disappointment, it is worth making an effort to find quality services. Our goal is not just to sell you a tour, but we want to make your stay in St. Petersburg excellent, therefore we are very attentive to the details, and we constantly improve and refine our products.

In high season, in the summer you can easily book this tour a month out. But you can send a request for a tour a week or two in advance and we will quickly reply if this is possible. From fall to spring you can book this tour a week before.

It’s partially suitable, but there may be difficulties. We do not recommend this tour for people with limited mobility. The Pavlovsky Palace has no elevators and the exhibition is located not only on the first, but also on the second and third floors.

Therefore, it is best to book a separate private tour to the Catherine palace or this tour if you have the opportunity to climb the stairs on your own without a wheelchair or with someone else’s help in the Peterhof Grand Palace.

This is a very busy program, so we can recommend booking a short half-hour tour of the most beautiful stations of the St. Petersburg metro at the beginning of the tour on the way to Pavlovsk. It is absolutely free and very interesting. You can rest or visit a good restaurant in the evening. We will be happy to help you to choose the best place to dine out. We strongly recommend not visiting late performances/shows and viewing opening of bridges after this tour